This wasn’t Maximum Overdrive or anything.
This was Tamarind Valley, Southern California, here and now.
He had only had an unusually vivid dream brought on by watching a film about a haunted car. It was only a step further, after all, to a haunted television, like in Poltergeist.
He decided that he really shouldn’t have invited a double-whammy like that—reading the novel and watching the film in one day. Especially when it was so hot and sleep would be difficult anyway. He should have shut the book and....
The book!
He had left it at Payne’s, lying cover up on the floor.
At least that’s where he thought it would be.
He pulled on a shirt and started to leave. At the door, he stopped—he needed the key. He slapped instinctively at his jeans pockets and panicked momentarily when his fingers felt only muscle rather than the hard, sharp outline of the brass key. Then he remembered that the key would be in his shorts.
He returned to the pile of clothing in his bedroom and leaned over it. For a second, it was as if the material moved, fluttered like a ribcage rising and falling. He blinked. There was nothing. Just a pair of filthy shorts wrapped around a T-shirt, both of them spotted and stained with sweat and dirt.
He dug gingerly into the pile—it might be his own sweat and dirt but that didn’t make it any more, palatable, and the clothes were disgustingly clammy and stuck together. He pulled the key from the pocket.
And nothing happened.
No savage creature lunged at him, no spontaneous fire burst out to consume him on the spot, no flickering of blue flame curled around his fingers.
Flames.
He almost remembered something again. Not knowing why, he stared at his hand. The flesh was whole, tanned and smooth as always. He recognized the white scar from a cut when he was nineteen, then the pink tissue of a healing scrape from a rose thorn not more than a week ago.
Otherwise, nothing else. Nothing new.
There had been no fire, no sparks, no blue energy wrapping around the hand like an insane, insubstantial neon boa. It had been a dream.
He left the room and walked outside. For some reason, he skirted Payne’s lawn and followed the sidewalk up to the porch. The front door stood slightly ajar, opening onto a crack of darkness. It looked as if Nick had simply forgotten to close it the night before.
Another clue. What he thought he remembered was an illusion, a dream. The door had not locked itself. It had not happened.
Nick felt a moment of panic. If someone had gotten in and stolen any of the equipment while he was in charge....
He took the steps in a bound, pushed the door open, and turned on the lights.
The living room seemed less glaring than it had the night before. The white was subdued. He walked into the hall, then on to the viewing room. He turned on the light and looked down at the floor.
The book was not there.
He checked in the kitchen, although he knew that he hadn’t left it there. Then he tried the Control Room. His palms were sweaty when he pushed the door open; they left damp spots on the polished surface. But the room was quiet, neutral. Everything was in place. He glanced at the shelf. There was not even a gap where the DVD for Christine should be. He could see the title printed boldly along the back of the box.
He crossed to the opposite wall and punched the eject button on the player. The slot was empty. He returned to the living room and stood there for a while, searching every corner of the room.
Then he saw something.
The chess set was not quite the same as it had been before. It was still black on white, but the black no longer glistened. It seemed dull. He touched one of the pieces. A gray stain smudged his fingertips. He sniffed it.
Ash. And the acrid smell of burnt paper.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Payne returned unexpectedly later that night.
Nick was still awake even though it was well past midnight. He was lying on his bed in the darkened room, staring up at the ceiling, his head cradled in his arms. If it had been a scene in a film—a film noir, no doubt—he would have been smoking, the thin cigarette smoke curling serpentine around his head as he breathed out, no more than a sigh. Half an inch of ash would hang tenuously but undisturbed from the end of the cigarette smoldering between his angular, masculine fingers.
But Nick did not smoke so there was no cigarette, no atmospheric effects from dim light filtering through smoke. Instead there was simply a young man lying motionless on a narrow bed, his profile outlined by moonlight through a single window.
This was no film.
He was afraid to go to sleep. There were, after all, dreams.
Instead, he stared at the splotchy tiles, finding figures in the patterns of light and shadow as they intersected an ancient dark patch caused by a leaky roof years before. Then he stopped doing even that. The figures began to seem too real.
This time he tried to blank everything out, numb his senses, close himself off from anything out there and withdraw. Even that was impossible.
He may have heard the car pull up and a single door slam shut, metal against metal and loud in the stillness. If he did, he made no movement to sit up and look out the window.
Unseen and unheard, Payne crossed the sidewalk, mounted the porch, and entered the waiting house. He turned on the living room light. In one hand he held his suitcase. Cathy was not with him.
After a few moments, the door closed and Payne’s house was as dark as Nick’s.
For a long while, both houses remained quiet, silent, dark.
Finally, Nick slept, although fitfully, tossing on his bed as if in pain. Several times, he pressed his hands between his legs as if to still a sharp, sudden pain, and when he did sweat beaded on his forehead and lips.
Each time, the glider on Payne’s porch whispered into the night.
Crash!
Nick sat bolt upright, both hands cradling his throbbing temples.
Crash!
Except it wasn’t a crash at all. Someone was knocking on the front door. Not even knocking. Barely rapping gently tapping nevermore nevermore.
Crash!
“In a minute,” he yelled, wincing at the violence his own voice stirred up inside his head. His vision reeled. He wanted to vomit. When he finally stood up, he was so dizzy that the bed spun like an out-of-control Scrambler at a country carnival midway.
Crash!
“Minute!”
He hadn’t drunk anything the night before or he might have expected a hangover, might have been at least partially prepared for the rocking pain. And this didn’t feel like a drunk headache, either. Mingled with the pain was a pulsing, sickening sense of threat, dream mingled with reality in doses that he could not understand. But he knew that he had slept badly and that he felt sick. Unspeakably sick.
Crash!
“Okay, dammit! I’m coming.”
He threw a robe on and stumbled to the living room. Half awake, more than half furious at whoever continued to bang at the front door at this ungodly hour, he worked the sticky lock with the tenacity of a drunk trying manfully to walk a straight line. Finally the door swung open.
“Hi,” said Payne. He was blindingly outlined by the sunlight.
Nick pulled back and threw his hands over his eyes, looking for all the world like Dracula being exposed to the rising sun.
Payne stepped in. His smile died, replaced by concern.
Nick stared at him, wondering why he was here, what happened to the romantic weekend Payne and Cathy had planned, whether Cathy was standing behind him on the porch. He moved to tighten his robe tie. Wouldn’t do to have it fall open and have Ca thy....
“Hey,” Payne said, “You all right? You look like death warmed over, man.”
Nick tried to answer but a hot-acid welling in his gut warned him not to open his mouth—something other than words would probably gush out.
“Mmmph,” he gulped, throwing his hand over his mouth as he
bolted for the bathroom.
Payne followed him, even entering the tiny room and shutting the door.
Nick stood bent over the sink, his eyes hollow and dark-rimmed, his cheeks white.
“You look like hell,” Payne said quietly.
As if in answer, Nick dropped to his knees by the toilet and heaved. Once, twice, three times dry heaves that tore through him and made every muscle in his body tremble. For an awful moment he felt as if he were ripping his guts out by the roots as the spasms hit his stomach and throat. Then, with a sense of something like relief that rapidly transmuted into agonizing pain, he vomited great clots of dark and greenish matter, followed by a stinking, acrid bile that burned in his gullet. He was sweating heavily, panting for breath between heaves.
Payne had moved behind him. One hand, one gloriously cool, dry hand reached around to hold Nick’s forehead. The other rested lightly on the sick man’s shoulder. For several moments, Payne crouched next to Nick and spoke, although neither of them were aware of particular words—just sounds, low and soft and soothing.
“I’m sorry,” Nick mumbled over and over between heaves, his voice an anguished counterpoint to Payne’s quiet whisperings. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Finally the siege was over. Nick stayed on his knees for a long while afterward, though. He was shaking now and felt too weak to try to stand. The guck in the toilet bowl smelled horribly; for a moment, he was afraid that he would throw up again, then Payne pressed the gleaming silver handle and, with a thick sucking sound that grated against Nick’s ears, the stuff swirled down and around and out of sight. Nick screwed his eyes tight; the movement of the water made him dizzy again, and his stomach rumbled.
Payne still leaned behind him, bent over his shoulder, supporting him and whispering encouragement.
“Okay?” Payne said at last, his voice more normal. “Can you stand up?”
“Yeah,” Nick answered shakily, then proved himself a liar by nearly falling back into Payne’s arms.
“Let me give you a hand.” Payne slipped an arm under Nick’s and helped him back to the bedroom.
“What a mess,” Payne said instinctively when he saw the bedding wadded on the mattress, the sheets damp and matted. “You have a fight in here last night?”
“Don’t know,” Nick said. “Didn’t sleep well. Sick, I guess. Didn’t know it till just now.” He tried to make the last sentence into a joke, but the attempt failed. It merely sounded pathetic.
“Sit here for a minute.” Payne helped Nick into a chair, then turned his attention to the bed. He tossed the linen onto the floor and rummaged in the open closet for fresh sheets. There were only two sets; Payne pulled the top one off and briskly set about remaking the bed. His hand seemed to be bothering him, his fingers stiffening so that it must have been hard for him to tuck the edges beneath the mattress, but soon the bed was at least passible.
“Let’s get you down on here,” he said, grinning at Nick. Nick stared back at him. His cheeks had more color now, and his eyes had lost some of their fevered glare. He stared intently at Payne. Payne shifted his weight back and forth as if uneasy.
“What’s the matter, my fly open?” Payne said jokingly, as if hoping to break whatever spell held Nick.
Nick blinked.
“Uh, no. Uh, for a moment there, I thought.... I, I don’t know.”
“Come on, let’s get you over to the bed,” Payne said.
He pulled Nick up, supporting most of Nick’s weight as they crossed the room. Nick’s muscles trembled in wrenching waves as he stumbled against Payne. Whatever was wrong, it was obviously pretty severe.
Nick collapsed onto the bed. For a long while he lay there, sweating and panting, staring straight up. Payne laid a hand on his shoulder. It felt cool and comforting; for an instant, Nick half-believed that it was his mother’s hand, rough and worn but comforting.
“Be right back,” Payne’s voice said, and the sensation disappeared. Nick opened his eyes in time to see Payne step into the hall.
A moment later Nick dimly heard the sound of water running.
“This might help,” Payne said when he returned. He draped a damp cloth over Nick’s forehead and eyes. He sat on the bed next to Nick.
“Do you have any idea what’s wrong? You eat something bad? Should I call someone?”
Nick shook his head. “Don’t know...what happened. Not food poisoning. Haven’t been drinking. Nothing like that. Just...just sick.”
There was a long silence.
“It’s better now, though,” Nick said. His voice was stronger, without the panicky quaver it had had before.
Payne studied his face. The color was returning even more. Nick’s breathing was deeper, more regular.
“Okay, but you stay put for a minute.” Payne disappeared again. This time Nick heard subdued sounds from the kitchen: cabinets opening and closing, the fridge door whooshing shut, the clattering of china and silverware. Maybe five minutes passed before Payne reappeared carrying a tray with a pot of something that smelled like herb tea.
For a second, Nick’s stomach heaved and tried to register a complaint, then the aroma sank all the way in and he felt his nerves unknotting.
“Try some.”
“Thanks.” He sipped.
The warm tea soothed as he swallowed, cutting through the awful aftertaste that coated his tongue and teeth and leaving him feeling cleansed and warm. He sipped again.
“Thanks, that was just right.”
“Lucky you had some in the cupboards, or I would’ve had to run home for my own. Mom always poured mint tea down me when I got sick. She claimed there was something in the mint oils that settled stomachs. Maybe there is. It sure works for me.”
“Me too, apparently.” Nick handed Payne the cup and raised himself on his elbows. “I think everything’s okay now.” He sat up, leaning against the headboard and rearranging his robe.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Nick took a deep breath and was surprised to find that his stomach felt calmer. His throat was looser and no longer burned where the hot vomit had scoured through. His teeth still felt gritty, though, and his breath stank.
He sipped the mint tea again, as much for the smell as for the warmth. He set the cup down on the night table, relieved to notice that his hand did not shake. There was no telltale clattering of china against wood, just a single solid thump.
He leaned against the headboard and closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He felt a hand on his leg.
“Well,” Payne said, “gotta go now.”
“Wait,” Nick answered quickly. “What…why did you come over this morning? I thought you and”—he swallowed heavily and forced a sudden resurgence of bile down—“and Cathy were....” He couldn’t finish.
Payne laughed lightly. “Oh, that. Well...hey, you don’t look so good any more. Should I help you into the....”
“No.” Nick waved a hand weakly. “I’m all right here.”
“Okay. Well, what I wanted was to let you know that I…we would probably be gone until Tuesday or Wednesday. Can you still keep an eye out on things?”
Nick shook his head. “No sweat. There was a...problem, though. Last night.”
“What?” Payne’s voice was sharp enough that Nick opened his eyes and looked over at him.
“Not much. Static. A...maybe a cross circuit between the DVD player and the TV. I saw a...sort of a double exposure. I think. I was pretty sleepy.”
“Damn,” Payne said, softly but full of emotion.
“It wasn’t much,” Nick said, raising himself on his elbow. He felt pretty good again. Whatever it was, it was passing. Probably getting that stuff off his stomach was all he needed. He swallowed and noticed that his teeth felt cleaner, smoother.
“Probably as much in my dreams as in the machine.”
“Just the same,” Payne said, “I don’t like it. They said they fixed it last time. I’m gonna call that fu...that place and give them a piece of my mi
nd.”
He glanced at his watch.
“Can I use your phone?”
Nick nodded.
Payne crossed to the desk and dropped into the office chair and pulled the phone toward him and dialed a number, punching each one as if he were punching someone in the jaw. He seemed full of repressed anger. Nick felt like calling across the room, Hey, it’s okay. No need to kill the guy over a short. Probably just a wire or something.
“Hello, Tasco,” Payne said suddenly. There was a short pause.
“Gunnison. Look, what’s with my DVD player. I thought you said that you fixed it....”
Another pause. Nick could hear a squeaky sound, like long-distance mice. Tasco’s voice no doubt.
“You bet you will. When?”
After a second or two, he covered the mouthpiece with his hand and looked over at Nick.
“Would you be able to let them in Monday?”
“Sure, but….”
“Monday. By two o’clock. The key’s next door. Yeah. Wheeler. Right.”
He slammed the receiver down.
“Sorry,” he said, with a lopsided grin. “Hope I didn’t break your phone. It just pisses me off when they don’t do a job right the first time. Waste of their time and mine.”
He settled into the chair, leaning back and crossing his legs at the knees.
“I hope it doesn’t put you out, having to go over and open up,” he said.
“No. I didn’t have anything much planned. I was just going to....”
“Well,” Payne said, standing abruptly, so abruptly that the chair clicked forward on its casters. “Gotta go. Take care, buddy.”
He leaned down and clapped Nick on the shoulder.
“Sure.” Payne started to leave. At the doorway, he turned around. “I really appreciate you keeping an eye out on the place. Maybe one day these endless meetings with lawyers will be over and I can start living a normal life.”
“Meetings? I thought that you and Cathy were....”
It hit again. Violently, without warning, the spasm hit it’s Old Faithful time, folks, gather round and watch the greatest show on earth! Thar she blows!
Nick spewed green vomit over himself, drenching his robe and his sheets. The stuff burned like hot bacon grease where gobbets splashed on the backs of his hands and spattered onto his bare chest where the robe had fallen partially open.
Static! Page 23